Tonality

"[Tonality is] the special meaning [functions] that chords receive through their relationship to a fundamental sonority, the tonic triad."

"[Tonality is the] set of relationships, simultaneous or successive, among the tones of the scale."

"In the passage quoted here from Monteverdi's madrigal [Cruda amarilli, mm.9-19 and 24-30], one sees a tonality determined by the accord parfait [root position major chord] on the tonic, by the sixth chord assigned to the third and seventh degrees, by the optional choice of the accord parfait or the sixth chord on the sixth degree, and finally, by the accord parfait and, above all, by the unprepared seventh chord (with major third) on the dominant. (p.171)"

"For the elements of music, nature provides nothing but a multitude of tones differing in pitch, duration, and intensity by the greater or least degree... The conception of the relationships that exist among them is awakened in the intellect, and, by the action of sensitivity on the one hand, and will on the other, the mind coordinates the tones into different series, each of which corresponds to a particular class of emotions, sentiments, and ideas. Hence these series become various types of tonalities. (p.11f)"

"But one will say, 'What is the principal behind these scales, and what, if not acoustic phenomena and the laws of mathematics, has set the order of their tones?' I respond that this principle is purely metaphysical [anthropological]. We conceive this order and the melodic and harmonic phenomena that spring from it out of our conformation and education. (p.249)"

"[Tonality is] the art of combining tones in such successions and such harmonies or successions of harmonies, that the relation of all events to a fundamental tone is made possible."

"Tonality is the organized relationship of musical sounds, as perceived and interpreted with respect to some central point of reference that seems to co-ordinate the separate items and events and to lend them meaning as component parts of a unified whole."

"[Tonality is] prolonged motion within the framework of a single key-determined progression."

"[Tonality is] contrapuntal progressions … can be key defining and capable of assuming structural significance."

"[Tonality is] directed motion within the framework of a single prolonged sonority."

"The inception of the principle of tonality and certain of its techniques expressing themselves in the construction of tonal units of various length and complexity goes as far back as the Organa of St. Martial and Santiago de Compostela. A continuous development of structural polyphony from the twelfth to the twentieth century may with justification be assumed. Whether we encounter the use of modes or the major-minor system, whether the contrapuntal voice voice leadings are different from those of later periods or whether harmonic thinking expresses itself in a different manner than later on in the eighteenth century, the music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance demonstrates the same basic principles of direction, continuity and coherence as music from the Baroque period to the twentieth century."

"Music is tonal when its motion unfolds through time a particular tone, interval, or chord."

"The medieval musician … did not hear a triad as a triad … a textbook definition of tonal coherence is not the same as the phenomenon of tonal cognition as experiences."